Nighttime in the Outback
by HextheDaydreamer
Summary: A dialogue driven piece based on Caged: Ghost Runner. A slight reimagining of Chapter 18: Caged, Whisper seeks out Dren before he leaves Australia to talk about loss, pain, and possible cures.


**Author's Notes: Tumblr has been taking up most of my time, with university at a close second. During my lecture this morning, this started writing itself and I thought I'd post to let everyone know that I'm still alive. Dren is a character that I lent to MustangLover97 for Caged: Ghost Runner.**

**He was originally in a G. I. Joe story that I wrote…what, a year ago? And I took that story down because I couldn't stand reading it anymore. However, I'm in the planning stages of a new G. I. Joe story which will hopefully be better than the last….Like, way better.**

* * *

Nighttime in the Outback

"Isn't this a conversation you should have with your husband?"

"Probably."

Dren doesn't even try to disguise his frustration, pinching the rim of his beer bottle and moving his fingers through his hair. Lily or Whisper or Viper – who even cares now? – takes a long sip of her own beer and sighs, the other hand not currently gripping the neck of the bottle is flush against her face, nimble fingers digging into the scar on her face.

"That's two already, slow down."

To spite him, Lily chugs the second bottle and grabs a third.

"Who made you my mother? You brought six anyway."

"That isn't a challenge to drink it all in one sitting especially when your head's in the wrong place." Dren watches Lily uneasily as his words stumble into coherence, then ducks as Lily throws the bottle at his head.

"And where should my head be? My daughter, my Griffin, is dead!"

Lily rises on numb feet, swinging a fist into the wall of the helicopter and cracking a knuckle or two. She sinks to the ground, defeated and weeping, but keeps a hand over her mouth so Dren can't hear her sobbing. He still does.

His beer bottle is clean of lip prints, perhaps because he can still remember the first person he lost, remembering their love of the "little drink". Perhaps he doesn't drink because his tongue loosens too easily with outpourings of regrets, curses, and the retelling of fond memories. Not because he's drunk though, North American alcohol is bath water compared to colder climates icy brews and exotic punches of flavour from below the Equator, but because words flow unhindered by the mind. All it takes is a taste of delirium, a taste of numbness of limbs, to unlock the heart's whimsies and desires, something a mercenary shouldn't indulge in too deeply.

"Whisper," he implores the soldier in her, "she wouldn't want – "

"Me to grieve? She wants me to live my life knowing she's in a better place, is that it? Bullshit, Dren, she was twelve."

"And taught well by her parents in both mind and body."

"Clearly not well enough." Lily twists around to stare at him, silver eyes glinting in the dwindling light of the sun, and crawls towards the fourth bottle, grinning bitterly at the smashed remains of the third.

"You just had to dodge that, huh?"

"I'd prefer to remain as unnoticeable as possible, thanks."

"_Sure,_" she retorts sarcastically, her eyes flickering between the bottle and his face. That there was a subtle jab at the unordinary pigmentation of his eyes – though hers aren't any better in that department – dark red like wine. Lily lifts the bottle and Dren shakes his head.

"Throw it again, I'll dodge it again and then there'll be glass everywhere. Whisper." He tries to draw out the rational side, the no-nonsense fighter with a wicked attitude, he wants her to think straight. Be impersonal.

"Like me."

"Sorry?" she asks before taking a massive gulp.

"Just thinking aloud. Pay it no attention."

* * *

"Do you ever get drunk?" Lily asks minutes later, inwardly trying to abstain from further alcohol consumption and losing.

"Not in the middle of nowhere beside a helicopter that I should be on, bound for distant lands and away from a woman I consider a sister who ought to be with her husband discussing the recent events that have transpired, no."

"You're evading~"

"Just the once. With Ari." _Ah, the unmentionable topic. Sly she-devil._

"You seen her recently or does she still think you're dead?"

_About Whisper's height. Longer hair in a braid, it's darker too. Eyes that hover between blue and green…_

"This isn't about Ari."

"Boo who, you whore. You faked your death that day."

A sigh. Reluctant storyteller again. "Yes but getting drunk wasn't part of the plan."

"My father was a mercenary before me, he was in the business before he met my mother. I was trained from the moment I could walk: languages, codes, weaponry, combat, history, everything. Prom night, he decides that when I graduate I'll start joining him on jobs. Ari asked me out to the dance and I said yes despite myself. What I needed was to disappear, somehow erase myself from all worldly knowledge, Dad had almost wiped me clean from most databases but still, if you search the yearbook, I'll be standing next to her. Inevitably, someone spiked the punch and we were so drunk that every step made the world turn…like we were on a perpetual merry-go-round."

"…everything gets fuzzy from there. I wasn't in total control of my "death", Dad shot me with some sedative, slowed my heart right down. He knocked Ari out and then…he was in the ambulance and pronounced me dead."

"Do you have a grave somewhere?" Lily, content with facing him squarely in the face, lifts the bottle to her lips and swallows. Dren unconsciously shuts his eyes and tries to blot out the image.

"No, got cremated. The urn's with my mother."

"That's gotta be weird."

"I suppose. She's come to see it as a joke so…I see it like that too. Lucky for Dad though, he never existed in the world and he can come and go as he pleases, suppose I could too but I'm having a lazy streak."

"Does Ari know you're alive? Surely you have…ways of telling her." Lily puts a hand over her mouth and makes a face, Dren points to a patch of tall grass and she sticks her tongue out as if to say "I'm fine, you jerk".

Testing the answer carefully, he answers with "yeah".

"Wait, what?"

"I took a detour before coming to look after your girls, don't know what possessed me to do it but…we got reacquainted."

"So you fucked her."

"I'm beginning to remember why I don't like you drinking."

"Shut up. Did she think she was drinking, uh, dreaming?"

"In the beginning maybe."

"What changed?" Lily pulls the bottle back to her lips and Dren snatches it away, dumping the contents of his untouched drink and her own, throwing the bottles into the pitch blackness around them. A tiny giggle escapes her and Dren rolls his eyes, pushing himself onto his feet and grabbing the last bottle. He offers a hand and she accepts, raising an eyebrow when he pushes the bottle into her hands.

"Go on, I know you want to."

"Tell me what changed."

"Ari's pregnant."

The bottle soars from Lily's palm, following the path of the previous glass flyers and smashing against the ground outside the village. She turns around and sways into Dren, her head knocking into his chest.

"Congrats," she mumbles and Dren chuckles awkwardly, helping her sit down and passing her a blanket. "How far along is she?"

"Three months. After things settle…I'll be going home to her."

"But you have to fix me first." She throws the blanket away and gets up, pacing in front of the helicopter and Dren. A tiny lamp is all that illuminates the area, a waning circle that barely scares the shadows off Lily's body.

Lily wanted Griffin to be buried here in Jungle Cat's village, somewhere no one could touch her. Dren arrived late that night after the burial as the Joes separated for the night. He didn't see Scarlet or Ripcord but they were likely bunking together, masking their pain until hidden, wanting to be brave for Lily and Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes himself was only metres away in one of the grass and mud huts.

The news of Griffin's death came from Snake Eyes on a secure line, a series of beeps mimicking Morse code. It was probably best that the ninja relayed the information, one part because Lily wouldn't stop crying and second because Snake Eyes couldn't vocalize his own pain. When Dren arrived, the ninja had done nothing but remain seated within the hut, rigidly balanced on his knees, slipping in and out of consciousness. Dren did not pretend to understand the ninja's pain, the two had done nothing but spar against each other, there was no casual dialogue.

"I didn't come to fix you, petulant child." He admonishes gently, something like a smile stretching his face. "There are things no one can fix."

"Time doesn't heal all wounds?" she quotes ruefully, finally stopping in front of him, their toes touching.

Dren carefully folds his arms over his chest, barely lifting his head to acknowledge Lily standing over him, giving her the illusion that she has him backed into a corner.

"Time numbs, Whisper, that's all I know."

"Then how am I supposed to heal if I won't be able to feel anything?"

"I'm working on that."

* * *

They do not fall asleep. Lily stoutly refuses to even sit down and has taken off her shoes so she can feel the ground "breathe" beneath her feet. At least she hasn't thrown the blanket away, warm as Australia is, the night is universally cold.

"What are you going to name it?" Lily asks from the darkness, suddenly interested in circling the chopper as if it might house more Cobra operatives.

"Hm?"

"Your baby."

"Not sure. I'll have to see how Ari feels and…yeah." He yawns and kicks out his legs, nudging Lily's feet with his toes when she stops near him.

"…you're different somehow."

"As are you. Parenthood does that…wanna be its godparent, you and Snake Eyes?"

"Its not even born yet! Ari doesn't even know us."

"She will and she'll love you as much as I do, maybe more."

Lily scoffs and plants herself just within reach of Dren's feet, her hands rapidly moving up and down her face as her shoulders shake.

"…can you imagine Snake in a church though?"

"Isn't that what chaplains are for?"

"You're crazy." Lily snorts, holding her stomach and laughing.

"Maybe I'm drunk."

"As if."

"Then drunk on life is what I am."

"Oh, OK Yoda."

* * *

It'll be morning soon, Dren can sense the dawn tickling the grass awake as the blades of green flutter against his hands. He's bent his knees at an angle comfortable enough for Lily to lean against so she can see the sun rise. A small part of him remembers that Sasha is alone with Snake Eyes who likely is not sleeping either, even now Dren thinks he can hear her tossing in her bed as she fends off the nightmares and screams, the bloody images that will plague her thoughts for years to come until she learns to…to what?

Dren admits to a certain numbness, it acts as a veil between himself and everyone else. The cold shoulder, those brutal eyes and powerful limbs. The numbness grants him the ability to kill ruthlessly, uncaring to the pain of his prey. Once inside the veil of numbness, it is Erebus that dominates. Darkness incarnate, born of Chaos. Myth made real, fairy-tale that kills. Silly poetry. Silly words. Just silly.

"Does it still hurt? The people you've lost?" the woman asks, Dren shakes his head and presses the palms of his hands into his eyes.

"Yeah."

"Does it ever stop?"

"It comes and it goes, I'm sure you've noticed. Meeting new people, seeing old friends…those help."

Somewhere in the distance, some metres away, someone yawns.

"Do tell." Lily leans back, her bangs falling away from her face and revealing the scar that made her partially blind.

"There's the Lily I know." He pokes her side. "Ever have the feeling that you've met someone before?"

"A few times, I think."

"Good. For example, you happen to remind me of a woman I used to know. She designated herself as my nurse, and my father's. Same tenacity, same penchant for trouble, same nose – "

"Odd thing to remember, the nose."

"Bone structure's similar. Regardless, those little things, little memories of the people I used to know make the pain and numbness go away. Go find yours." With a flourish of his arm, Dren yawns again.

"Or at least, find someone to make new memories with. Important ones."

"You sound like a motivational speaker."

"I didn't hear you complaining."

* * *

There was still a sombre air to the morning the following day, Snake Eyes noted as Sasha disappeared in search of Quick Breeze or maybe it was the other way around. He noticed that the helicopter was still parked outside the village and quietly made his way around it to find both Lily and Dren asleep.

Lily was sprawled out against the ground like a starfish, a blanket was awkwardly wrapped around her body and her head rested on one of Dren's booted feet. Unlike the woman, Dren would not have slept so soundly, his knees were still raised and his arms folded sloppily over his stomach, his chin digging into his chest.

"For some reason I assumed she'd snore." Dren groaned, falling to one side and wrapping his hands around his neck, quietly cursing under his breath.

"_You heard me coming."_

"Didn't feel like sleeping yet, tried to get your wife to sleep in the chopper but she's one hell of a handful tipsy, angry, and sad."

"_Sorry for the trouble."_

Dren looked up and rolled his eyes, pushing himself onto his knees and smoothing out his long black hair.

"Not trouble…more like an unanticipated challenge that I should've anticipated." He tied a knot in his hair and stood up, making a face as the sun hit his eyes.

"_Will you be leaving soon?"_

"I'll sleep all day today and be off tomorrow morning, maybe earlier. Depends. You?"

Snake Eyes looked down at Whisper and shrugged, walking over and carefully picking her up in his arms. The ninja paused and Dren smirked, can't use sign language when your hands are full.

"I'm in no rush to know. You already know how to contact me." Dren yawned. "Give me a shout if you're ever in Western Canada, I'll be staying there for a while."

Snake Eyes cocked his head to one side.

"She'll tell you later."


End file.
